


Feel Me Running Through Your Veins

by twilightstargazer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Mixed Media, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-16 23:33:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8121901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: The interviewer’s smile freaks her out. “So,” she asks, sounding far too perky, “What’s the deal with you and Bellamy Blake?”Clarke wills herself not to flush as her brain processes the question. What is the deal her and Bellamy? He’s her sometime friend who argue and bicker like no other but she also craves the taste of him on her tongue. They’re people who sling insults at each other from their respective stages, only to find him later pulling her hair so that he can attack her neck with sloppy kisses. That’s what’s going on with her and Bellamy Blake.Instead, she gives her a charming smile and says, “Nothing. We’re just friends. Sometimes.”Next to her Raven begins to cough and Clarke slaps her on the back, perhaps a bit harder than necessary.or, Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin definitely do not like each other. No matter what the tabloids say.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightyears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightyears/gifts).



> I... have no length control whatsoever. It's tragic.
> 
> giveaway fic #2 for [Rosie](http://bisexualbellamyblake.tumblr.com/) who asked for actors and smut which lead to this monster

_then_ _  
_ **_J U N E_ **

He slams into her like a tidal wave, all grappling hands and searing mouth, while her fingers tangle in his hair. Part of her knows that they should not be doing this, not when just seconds ago they were screaming themselves hoarse at each other, faces red in anger as they went along with the same old song and dance.

_“But I guess things like that are beneath people like you, right Princess?”_

She arches into him with a soft murmur when he bites on her bottom lip, sucking it none too gently in his mouth and soothing the sting with his tongue. It sends frissons of pleasure down her spine, and she gets to taste his moan, sweet on her tongue, as she pulls on his hair.

_“You’re just a self serving jackass, you know that Bellamy?”_

His hands are heavy on her hips, gripping them hard as he lets his tongue flutter against hers, and the two of them are all heat and fire, neither willing to give an inch. She can hear her blood rushing in her ear, blocking out everything but him, the feel of him, the smell, the way he presses his mouth against hers, hard and unyielding, and she has to hold on to him tight.

_“Shut up.”_

_“Make me.”_

And that’s how they ended up here, backed against the cold metal wall of his trailer, because Clarke deliberately came over to pick a fight having been too on edge all morning. Nothing calms her down like riling Bellamy up, but the tension that’s been coiling tighter ever since they met finally reached its breaking point today, leading to him pinning her to the wall.

Or maybe she pulled him to her.

There was want echoed in both of their eyes, that’s for sure.

Either way, they were both equally as guilty even though this was wrong but she just pulls him closer, lets her hands run over the curves of his biceps straining against those ridiculous wizarding robes and gives in, loving the way his glasses bite into her skin, the rasp of stubble on her cheeks. Bellamy kisses like he talks, confident, demanding and a little rough, and Clarke might have whimpered a little bit when his hand comes up to cradle her jaw, thumb brushing along the ridge of her cheekbone.

One kiss flows into two, then three, never once losing its intensity, never once losing its harshness and heat and ability to suck the air straight from her lungs. Teeth clack against one another, lips pressed together with a bruising force that makes her see stars, and when he slips his tongue into her mouth it tastes a bit like war and heartbreak, and she wants more.

Three turns into four, and he pulls back a little, just the barest brush of lips against hers yet it still sends her heartbeat skittering, and his hand slips to her neck, fingers pressed on her thrumming pulse. Shockwaves seem to originate from that spot, and Clarke lets her lips part, just a little bit, in a silent gasp of pleasure.

Five is a whisper of breath, shaky and deep, and she lets her hands linger at the nape of his neck, lightly scritching at his scalp in a way that has his nose brushing her cheek, tender and soft. She knows how to make him moan with it, how to test that bit of control he never seems to want to let up, and she does it again.

The sixth is a punctuation mark, a fullstop at the end of the sentence, sweet and succinct with clumsy lips before they both pull away with wide eyes and harsh breaths.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, running a shaky hand through his hair as he takes a step backwards. It leaves her feeling strangely cold, but she doesn’t pay too much attention to that, not when fuck seems like the understatement of the year for the mess they’ve gotten themselves into here.

Clarke’s eyes meet his and she echoes his words, because really, what else can she say.

 

* * *

 

 _before: 12 months ago_ _  
_ **_M A Y_ **

“No,” says Clarke, contemplating smothering herself with a pillow just to end this conversation.

On the other end of the line, Anya sighs in a way that she can tell that she’s pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Come on, Griffin. This is good opportunity.”

“I don’t want a good opportunity,” she says, flopping onto her stomach, “I don’t want anything other than to be left alone. If I go back out there the tabloids will eat this shit up.”

“It’s been six months. Surely people aren’t going to remember that now.”

“Pretty sure people are going to have a hard time forgetting the fact that my ex girlfriend outed me on the red carpet and then broke up with me then and there. In front of the press. _On the red carpet_ ,” she emphasises. “My mascara was running. I was turned into a meme.”

“A lot of celebrities are turned into memes,” Anya points out unhelpfully, and Clarke pulls a pillow across her face. “Look, everyone has their ups and downs in this kind of work. Get used to it.”

She scrubs a weary hand down her forehead. “You should host a seminar on pep talks, Anya, I’m sure people will learn a thing or two.”

There’s a bit of shuffling around on the other end of the phone and she hears the muffled sound of a door closing. When she speaks, Anya’s voice is the softest she’s ever heard it. “You need to start putting yourself back out there, Clarke. These things happen and yeah, it’s mortifying and you want to crawl under a rock, but you’re stronger than that.”

Clarke blinks several times, actually pulling her phone away to check the caller id to make sure, yep, that is in fact Anya, her hardass manager. “That might have been the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she says, a smile tugging at her lips, “Careful, I might cry.”

“Fuck off, Griffin,” she grunts, and the smile widens. “So, will you at least give it a chance?”

Hesitating for a moment, she contemplates the idea. “I could always just move to Wisconsin and become a dairy farmer instead of going back to acting. I have enough money to do that. You could find a new, competent client who doesn’t have a crisis every other week,” she says slowly.

She can practically _see_ Anya raising a single brow, a look of pure skepticism on her face. “Imagine what the tabloids would say about _that_ ,” she says, “Since that’s apparently your basis for making decisions these days.”

“They’d call me a butch lesbian since bisexuality apparently isn’t a thing, and then let me fade into obscurity with a my ten cows,” she answers promptly, and a receives a grudging huff of laughter in return.

“Fine, I’ll give you that one,” she says, “Now back to the point at hand, do you agree or not?”

Clarke bites her lip, hugging the pillow close. It would be nice to get back out there, she guesses. Despite all the drama she really does love acting, and while these past few months have been a nice break, she doesn’t know how much longer she can go without having anything to do. Finally, with a long, drawn out exhale, she relents, “Fine. You can send me the specifics and we’ll see.”

She’s not even done with her sentence before she hears the ding of her email notification and she startles out a laugh. “Jesus, were you waiting with your finger on the send button or something?”

“I was confident that I could break you,” she says, smug, and Clarke breathes a laugh again. “It’s just the audition package, but I think you’ll really like this show. It’s a cutesy, no bullshit type sitcom.”

“You know me well.”

“Let me know by tomorrow. I’m giving you twenty four hours to make a firm decision,” she says before hanging up.

Clarke can’t help but roll her eyes at her actions. Anya is a great manager, but she’s definitely got a flair for dramatics.

… And knows exactly what kind of roll would be perfect for easing her back into the industry, she grudgingly admits.

It starts off like another one of those generic crime investigation shows where she plays a damn good detective who doesn’t play well with others until she meets her new partner, actress unknown.

Anya was right. It’s the right amount of charming while still keeping with grittiness that comes with crime shows nowadays, and her character- as well as her yet to be known partner- shuts down at least three instances of perceived sexism in just the first episode.

(And she may be reading into things, but she’s pretty sure that the two detectives have a thing for a each other. A subtextual thing. God she hopes it’s a thing.)

It’s a _really_ good show.

Not only is the writing well done but the characters are pretty fleshed out and developed for a pilot ep and Clarke is already tempted to call back Anya with the affirmation that yes, she’s willing to go in for the audition. The only thing that’s holding her back is the smug look that she can picture all too well on her face at the news.

(She lasts seven hours, caving after she’s had dinner and Anya sounds just as self satisfied as she imagined.)

Turns out the reading is in a few days time and Anya says, “I’ll drive you up there myself. I don’t trust you to not run away because of cold feet.”

Clarke sighs, “As always, your faith in me is astounding.”

“We’re driving up the day before and booking a hotel. Start getting your shit together, Griffin.”

And she does, unearthing whatever she thinks would be suitable enough for being thrown back into the spotlight.If it was up to her she would just wear sweats all day. The morning they were scheduled to leave, Clarke is awoken by an incessant pounding on the door to her apartment at 7:30am.

Not even bothering to throw something over her tanktop and shorts, she stomps over and yanks the door open with a belligerent, “What the fuck.”

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Anya demands, placing her hands on her hips. Clarke glares at her weakly through her post sleep haze. Of course Anya would be looking runway ready at 7:30 on a Wednesday, both hair and makeup immaculate as she judges Clarke for looking like an overgrown sewer rat. She’s only mildly upset about it.

“You do realise it only takes like two and half hours to drive up to L.A. right? And that the audition is tomorrow?”

Anya merely grunts, and shoulders past her into the living room, though not before shoving a warm thermos in her hands. “Shut up, drink this, and get dressed.”

Unscrewing the cap, she’s immediately hit with the scent of fresh coffee, and a strongly brewed one at that. “Seriously?” asks Clarke, eyeing the dark brown sludge Anya likes to drinks. She goes through at least four cups a day and Clarke isn’t quite sure how she’s still living.

The other woman just gives her a shark like smile. “Bottoms up,” she smirks as she throws herself down onto the armchair.

Clarke grumbles but does as she’s told, only to gag at the first taste of it in her mouth. It’s bitter and horrible and she’s pretty her heart stutters over itself before beating double time.

“That’s disgusting,” she wheezes, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

Anya barely glances up at her phone. “I don’t care. Get dressed.”

She briefly considers drawing out her shower, but Clarke’s fairly certain that Anya wouldn’t hesitate to barge in and drag her out herself so she keeps it quick. Mostly. She probably could have spent a couple less minutes shaving her legs but oh well. What’s done is done, and Anya hasn’t expressed any desire to harm or maim her as yet so she considers it a win.

By half eight the two of them are trudging down to the carpark, Clarke’s duffel bag swinging lamely between them.

“If those goes badly I’m going to go back to my original plan of rearing llamas in South America,” she warns, pulling open the door to the passenger side with far more force than necessary. She throws her duffel in the backseat, having it land haphazardly on the floor.

Anya smoothly slides into the driver’s seat and the car hums to life. “I thought you were going to be a dairy farmer?” she asks lightly, passing over one of those heavy bran muffins she likes to eat. Clarke makes a face but accepts it nonetheless. Asking Anya to stop at a Starbucks to pick of breakfast will only result in a stink eye and another bran muffin thrown her way.

“I changed my mind. Llamas have more personality than cows. Plus the paparazzi will never find me as an obscure livestock owner in the Andes.”

“I’m glad you’ve thought this through,” she says wryly, and Clarke just smiles at her, taking a huge bite out of the muffin.

(She regrets it instantly. It tastes like sadness and despair.)

They don’t do much at the hotel, getting separate rooms and Anya leaves almost immediately to… do whatever it is she does on her downtime. Probably making a necklace out of human remains or something.

Clarke dicks around for a little bit, channel surfing before landing on an old episode of _Charmed_ and then making the decision to hesitantly open up her Twitter account to scroll through her feed. She doesn’t go on often, especially because of these last few months, only tweeting when Anya says she needs to make sure the world knows she’s not dead, and even then it’s just a retweet of something, like one of those cute kitten vines.

She goes through the writers’ room account, familiarising herself with the producer and director before she catches herself and stops. She could not get the role. Clarke knows that this industry is more luck than talent. She shouldn’t get attached.

It doesn’t stop her from looking up the studio though, learning that they’d be shooting on the same block as several other shows including some pretty well known ones. Arkadia Studios is home to shows like _Alphastar_ , _Marauders: Reign and Rebellion_ , and _Space Edge_ , just to name a few. It’s just a subtle reminder that it’s expected to do really well, and she swallows heavily, anxiety settling in the pit of her stomach.

When it’s time for her to go to the actual audition, Clarke is a veritable bundle of nerves, to the point where Anya has to grab her by the shoulders to take her to the studio.

“This is a bad idea,” she says, hands clenched tight enough that her knuckles appear bone white in her lap. “Maybe I shouldn’t get back into this just yet. Maybe we should go back home.”

“Maybe you should shut up,” Anya says mildly, switching lanes to head for their turn off, and Clarke just nods, meek, settling down in her seat and trying not to think of everything that could go wrong.

None of those things happen of course; in fact, the audition surprisingly goes well enough.

Clarke somehow manages to get in the mindset of her character and delivers her lines almost flawlessly despite the fact that she felt like she just came off a rollercoaster. The executive producer, Kane, is impressed at the end of it, and the room is all smiles when she’s done, stumbling back out into the arms of a waiting Anya.

“See?” she smirks, “You did just fine.”

“I’m going to throw up,” Clarke declares, and Anya just rolls her eyes.

Later that night Anya shows up to her room, a bag of Thai takeout in hand while Clarke is aimlessly scrolling through her phone.

“Can you believe that there are articles on this already?” she asks, glaring at the luminescent screen. “I thought this was a closed audition? How do they have pictures of me?”

“Never underestimate the power of the paparazzi,” Anya says sagely as she begins to unload containers. They eat in silence, sometimes a quip here or there about an article that popped up. The pictures are blurry at best, which many say means that it’s just a hoax, That’s a good thing, in Clarke’s opinion. The last thing she wants is to ease back into the water only to have a sea monster drag her down kicking and screaming.

When they’re finished, Anya puts aside her container and looks at her, determined. It’s intimidating to say the least.

“You should start looking into apartments,” she says, blunt as always.

Clarke’s taken aback. Out of all things she expected her to say, this wasn’t even on the list. “What's wrong with my apartment?” she frowns, “I like it.”

The look she gets in return suggests that she’s stupid for asking a question like that. “Well for one it's a good three hour commute from there to the studio.”

If anything, that just makes her frown deepen. “You're acting as though I already have the part when I’ve only gone in once.”

At that, Anya is suspiciously quiet and it makes Clarke narrow her eyes. “What? What aren't you telling me?” she demands.

Another beat of hesitation and then, “They specifically contacted me with the role. They want you to take the part.”

That makes her even more confused and she asks, “Why would they do that? I haven't been acting for a while and I doubt that I'm good for press at the moment.”

There's a sigh from Anya before she unwillingly says, “They cast one lead already and she specifically asked for you to be her co lead.”

“Who is it,” she says, voice flat and eyebrows raised expectantly.

Anya lifts her chin to meet her gaze, as though squaring up for a fight which. Well, it’s not necessarily out of the ballpark just yet. “Raven Reyes,” she says at last, and she’s certain you can hear the screeching of breaks as the world stops.

Neither of them speak while Clarke digests this information until she glares at her and spits, “Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to team up with my ex boyfriend’s ex? The ex he was using me to cheat on? What the fuck, Anya?”

She sighs again before saying, “I knew you would react like this, that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Clarke slumps backward into her pile of pillows. “The tabloids are going to come for me, you hear that? They’re going to come and ask me a million different questions and turn me into another meme. The opportunities for this are endless.”

“Relax, you’re making this worse than it needs to be.”

Her voice is muffled through the layers of pillows, but Clarke is certain Anya can hear her when she says, “Tomorrow. I’m flying to South America tomorrow to start my yet to be named llama farm tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

 _now_ _  
_ **_M A Y_ **

A bottle of green apple shampoo has never looked that intimidating to her.

Clarke probably spends a good five minutes under the stream of water just staring at the thing since she first noticed it. Her hair is already soaked all the way through, and the bodywash- _his_ bodywash, the one that makes her smell like pine trees and musk- has swirled down the drain ages ago, but she can’t stop staring at the bottle sitting oh so innocently in the shower caddy.

It’s the exact same brand she uses, the one that only the beauty store a good fifteen minutes from here sells, and she knows that it’s stupid to get all worked up over a simple bottle of shampoo, but she can’t help it, not when it makes her stomach flip like that,  not when she finds herself swallowing several times.

The shower door clicks open and she jumps, almost slipping if it weren’t for the muscled arm that shoots out to grasp her.

“Whoa careful,” says Bellamy, voice trembling with mirth as he pulls her into his chest. She feels the blush creep up her chest, and he notices it too, dropping a finger to her breastbone, tracing it all the up her neck. “You trying to drown in here, Princess?” he asks with a quirk of an eyebrow.

“Just got sidetracked,” she says sweetly thanking every deity she can think of that her voice doesn’t shake. She smirks and lets her eyes run unashamedly over his bare form, the sinews of his neck, the hard ridges of his stomach that taper into a sharp vee at his hips. Clarke loves to stare at his naked body, loves how it’s a study in sharp lines and angles that she wishes to trace first with charcoal and then her tongue.

Bellamy doesn’t miss the way she’s watching him, and he steps into her under the spray of the shower with a halfway smirk, letting it flatten his sex mussed curls. “Well,” he all but purrs, and she shivers, letting her hands trail across his broad frame. He leans in to bite her ear while his thumbs brush over the tight bud of her nipples. “How about I sidetrack you a little more?”

Her hands spasm on his shoulders at his words, nails digging into corded muscle and he drags his teeth down her jaw.

“It’s your water bill,” she breathes, already rubbing herself against his hardening cock, and he huffs a laugh into her skin.

Placing a kiss at the hollow of her throat, he mumbles, “It’s worth it,” and the grin that was budding across her face falls flat, stomach twisting awfully again.

She grabs his hand from where it’s playing around with her breasts and drags it down to the the junction of her thighs, widening her stance. “Less talking and more of this,” she tells him in a no nonsense kind of voice, “I’m not getting sidetracked as yet.”

He misses the emotions that played across her face before, for when he finally looks up, it’s to meet a challenging eyebrow and a playful glint in her eye. He laughs again, pressing his forehead against hers and lets his fingers trail across her folds, spreading her wetness around and her eyes flutter shut, head tilted back.

“Yes ma’am,” he says, and then he’s kissing her, soft and deep while his fingers drum on her clit.

She tries to put all thoughts of green apple shampoo out of her head, god she tries, and it works for a while, letting herself get caught up in his fingers and tongue, but the after she’s been lulled into a state of calm by a good orgasm, he reminds her of what they’re actually supposed to be doing in the first place.

Her stomach twists when he offers to wash her hair for her, and Clarke twists around, capturing his mouth in a frantic kiss that catches him off guard for a second before he’s even finish.

Soap gets in their mouths, but she ignores it in favour of kissing him harder, hands drifting up to grip his own hair, slippery between her fingers, and they stumble back into a wall, his hands flying to grasp her hips.

The water beats down on her fully now that she has his back against the wall, and his hands squeeze her hips, fingertips digging into the flesh of her ass, causing her to groan in his mouth. The soap suds drip down her back, and she tries her best to ignore it, focusing on the warmth of his mouth, the hardness of his cock trapped between their bodies, pressing against her stomach, until the water runs clean, and that’s when Bellamy growls, fumbling to turn off the tap and hauling her up against him, dripping wet.

Clarke shrieks a little when he lifts, carrying her the short distance to his bed and dropping her down on the edge of it only to kneel between her open thighs, shouldering them apart.

A hand darts to his hair, grasping it when he nuzzles the crease where her hip meets her thigh, stubble chafing in the most wonderful of ways against her skin, and it brings a smile to her face, all previous worries long gone because this she can do. Sex is just sex. This is what she signed up for all those months ago.

“Insatiable,” she tells him, tapping his cheek.

He noses at her again, this time dangerously close to her centre where she can feel his breath brush against her cunt and she shivers, waiting.

“Your fault,” he mumbles, too busy peppering her mound with chaste kisses.

“I wasn’t done in the shower,” she says, laying back with a sigh as he licks up her slit gently. “You distracted me.”

“That was my plan,” he says unabashedly, using his thumbs to hold her wide open in front of him, everything on display. Bellamy looks up at her with a boyish grin, “You’ll have plenty of time for that after,” he says, and keeps eye contact with her when he seals his mouth over her clit, and really, what can she say to that?

‘After’ turns out to be nearly an hour later, rinsing their combined stickiness off her skin while he changes the sheets. Her hair is long dried, a halo of blonde frizz around her head, and a cloud of green apple scent following her wherever she goes. It still makes her feel uneasy, the level of intimacy they’re at now, far higher than when this entire thing started, but Clarke makes a gargantuan effort to push it away. She could just be overreacting. She has a tendency to do that sometimes.

She steps out into the living room in just a ratty t shirt of his to find him lounging on the couch in sweats, a documentary playing on the TV while he nibbles on a slice of pizza. His glasses sit lopsided on his nose as always, and it makes her heart swell with fondness.

“Raven’s tweeting about us again,” he says, without any preamble, “Apparently she thinks we’re going to burn the building down if we’re left unchecked.”

Clarke immediately unlocks her phone and opens up the app, spotting the tweet at the top of her timeline, and she snorts. “What an idiot,” she says fondly, “Although I’m somewhat offended that she thinks we’ll destroy the complex.”

“I know right? Come on Reyes, we’re not monsters,” he says with a dramatic roll of his eyes, “Obviously if I wanted to get back at you for something I’d just trash your apartment. I’m not going to inconvenience the entire building just for our feud.”

“What a gentleman,” she says wryly, slumping down on the couch next to him, and he prods her with his toes.

“We should take a selfie,” he says after wiping the grease off his hands, “To show her that we’re definitely still alive and everything’s intact.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say to take a selfie? You? Bellamy Blake? The biggest technology hater known to mankind?”

“You’re a bit dramatic at times, anyone ever tell you that?”

“Only several times a day.”

He rolls his eyes again and reaches out for her phone, pulling up the camera app. “C’mere,” he tells her, sitting up so that his shoulder brushes against hers. She readily moves into frame.

“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” she says, “I feel like I should being taking a selfie of you taking a selfie, you know, to record this historical moment-”

She only stops talking when she hears to the sound of the camera going off and looks up to Bellamy not even bothering to hide his smirk.

“You did not just do that,” she says, shooked just a bit, “I was talking!”

“Well if you won’t shut up and pay attention,” he teases only to have the camera go off once more.

Now it’s her turn to cackle at the look on his face, and she pats his cheek lightly. “Karma,” she says succinctly, and there’s another sound of the shutter that makes her huff. “Alright enough of that. Give me back my phone.”

He holds out of her reach, grinning. “Just one more. And then you pick whichever and post it to um-” he wrinkles his nose as he tries to find the word and she can’t help but giggle.

“Instagram?” she prods him, and he makes a face, nodding in assent. “Honestly, you’re like twenty eight. Stop acting as though you don’t know what the different forms of social media are.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, knocking into her with his shoulder before lying back down on the couch. His eyes drift shut. “Just make sure that in whatever you post up, you get my good side.”

“You don’t have a good side.”

“Rude,” he says, though there’s a smile tugging at his lips that causes one to appear on her face. She never thought that they’d get here, even when they started fucking, and now they did, and it leaves her warm and fuzzy inside, this friendship she’s developed with him. It also fans the flames of her anxiety, wondering if they should just stop having sex entirely before it permanently screws up their friendship into something irreparable.

It doesn’t stop her from posting the picture though, turning off all notifications and throwing her phone on the coffee table before wedging herself between the back of the couch and him to watch whatever it is he found on Netflix for them. His arm ends up around her, and Clarke snuggles into it, perfectly content for the time being.

 

 

* * *

 

 _before: 12 months ago_ _  
_ **_M A Y_ **

Raven Reyes hasn’t changed since the last time she saw her.

Of course, Clarke’s only seen her twice before, once at the afterparty of an awards show where she had possibly the most uncomfortable conversation of her life, and the other time when she found her sitting on her- their?- ex boyfriend’s lap.

She’s still tall and tan, all lean muscle and sharp edges that cuts a pretty damn intimidating figure. She’s still dark and mysterious, eyes impassively trained on her the moment she entered the room, and she still makes her feel nervous, mortified and uncomfortable all at the same time.

Clarke gets the part, to no one’s surprise, but the actual cast listing hasn’t been released yet, not until they’ve all gone through a table read.

She’s placed in the seat next to Raven and it’s awkward to say the least. It’s still early with half the cast not here as yet and there’s only so much fake texting she can pretend to do before it becomes noticeable.

Finally, she cracks, turning in her seat to say, “So. This is awkward.”

She lifts a single perfectly manicured eyebrow. “What, most friendships don’t start with you realising you’re not dating the same two timing scumbag as someone else?” she asks, keeping a perfectly straight face.

“Is that what we are?” she asks, perhaps a bit too quickly, “Friends?”

Raven scrutinises her a little bit, as though expecting there to be some sort of alternative motive. She mustn’t have found any because she leans back with a half a smile and says, “Yeah Griffin. We’re friends.”

Clarke tries to bite back a smile but she probably doesn’t succeed, especially since Raven shoots her a sly, sidelong look and gently knocks her elbow into hers. She mimics the motion, knocking back into her in return before frowning as another question comes to mind.

“Why did you request me to be your co star?” she asks falteringly, “We’ve only met twice, and one of those times happened to be with you and my ex naked in bed together.”

“Good times that was,” she says with a wry twist of her lips. She turns so that her whole body is facing Clarke and worries her lip between her teeth. “I dunno. I mean, I’ve seen your stuff Clarke, you’re good at what you do and what happened all those months ago-” She stiffens and she knows Raven notices as she slows her speech, “-was pretty shitty. But you can get back up again eventually and if this was the opportunity for that, then why not?”

“It was a pretty bad experience,” she points out and Raven laughs.

“Yeah I figured. Getting outed and broken up with within the span of seven minutes? Ouch,” she winces and Clarke is pretty sure she ends up gaping at her. She leans over and taps her mouth closed with a ‘click.’ “Take it from me,” she says, resting a hand on her brace, “One bad experience doesn’t mean you have to hide away forever.”

Clarke stares at her for a beat longer before a shaky smile unfurls itself across her face. “I like you, Raven Reyes,” she declares and gets a smile that’s all teeth in response.

“Good,” she nods, “Because hopefully we’re gonna be seeing each other a lot for the next few months.”

And with one last shared grin, Kane enters the room, calling them all to silence to begin the table read.

It goes surprisingly well if she does say so. The cast is fun and quirky, each of them bringing something new to the table and there’s something about firing off quick witted banter with Raven, both of them smirking just a little while do so, that just seals the deal for her. For the first time in a long while she actually feels truly at home.

“Hey,” Raven calls out when it’s all over and she’s walking over to catch a cab, “Wait up.”

Clarke slows to a stop, turning to look at her as she catches up. “What’s up?”

She comes to a stop in front of her, shifting her weight from one leg to another and fingers the end of her ponytail. “Where are you staying?”

“Huh?”

“You’re from San Diego right?” she asks, and Clarke nods once, “So you need a place to stay while we’re filming.”

Right now she’s still living out of her duffle in the single hotel room. Anya left a few days prior, once she was sure that Clarke wasn’t going to run, and she’s been on her own since, not even sparing a thought about her housing predicament.

“Fuck,” she groans, raking a careless hand through her hair, “I forgot about that. And we start shooting in a week, dammit.”

She smiles at her, the same sharp one as before, but Clarke can see the nervous tightening around her eyes. “Well actually,” she begins, hesitating slightly, “I have a spare room. If you’re interested that is.”

It takes her a few seconds to realise that she’s gaping at her, mouth hanging open just a little and she hastens to shut it. “What- are you sure?” she sputters, “Because you don’t have to; it’s totally fine, I could just-”

“What?” she interrupts with a raised brow, “Live in a hotel room until you find somewhere to rent? Sounds fun.”

“Raven, I-” she falters searching for the right words. “Why?” is what she comes up with in the end, looking up at her beseechingly.

Her face softens infinitesimally. “You look like you could use a friend,” she says, “A real friend. Someone other than your agent.”

There’s a bit of a sting hidden beneath her words, and Clarke finds herself scuffing the loose gravel with the toe of her shoe. She’s not wrong; she’s been in this industry for ages and while she’s had acquaintances here and there, none of them had ever been able to quite move into the friendship category.

“You don’t even know me,” she warns, “I could be a terrible roommate.”

She shrugs. “Hey, if Finn had the balls to date both of us at the same time, we must have something in common, right?”

It gets a smile out of her. “I guess so.”

“So. You up for it?”

She ducks her head for a moment to hide what must be a truly ridiculous grin. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m in.”

They shake on it and two days later Clarke moves in with her. At least unofficially.

It’s a bit of a hassle getting everything together; she has to find her way back down to San Diego considering Anya was the one who drove her up here in the first place, and then figure out what to pack in her car to tote back up to her new place. It’s in doing all of this that Clarke realises the sheer amount of crap she’s come to own. Really, she has no idea how her wardrobe didn’t explode before because she has a truly frightening amount of clothes.

At the end of it, everything works out for the best.

She and Raven spend the day before they’re scheduled to start shooting unpacking her things in the spare room and it’s… fun. She hasn’t had this much fun in a long time, enthusiastically singing along to trashy pop music playing over the radio while they unload box after box. It turns out Raven’s spare room was a lab of sorts, all sorts of knickknacks and tools spread out.

“They were going to go back in storage when I started working again anyway,” she says, brushing off Clarke’s concern as they dump them into her previously empty boxes, “Relax Griffin.”

When it’s all said and done, the two of them find themselves sprawled off on the sofa, watching some sort of mindless reality TV show while they split a pizza. As far as days go, this one is a veritable success, and, watching Raven trying to balance straws on her nose while they lounge around together in their pyjamas, Clarke thinks that she made a good choice.

 

-

**_M A Y_ **

Her first day on set is… interesting to say the least.

The couple of scenes they do go well, the cast is just as amicable as before and the crew is a riot. Not to mention she’s slowly coming around with making friends with a handful of other people around her. It makes her feel like she’s somewhat successfully navigating her adult life.

That isn’t what makes it interesting though; no what makes it interesting is her run in with some overweening asshole while she’s still in her car.

There’s a tap on the glass which causes her to jump, and when her head snaps towards the source, there a man standing right by her door, frowning. He’s fairly tall, with tanned skin and bedhead, extremely attractive, and Clarke swears that she knows him from somewhere but she can’t put her finger on it. She doesn’t dwell on it though, because he’s standing outside her car, arms crossed over his- admittedly broad- chest and looking thoroughly put out.

“Can I help you?” she asks, polite, after rolling down the window.

The man doesn’t seem to have any regards for manners however as his upper lip curls into a sneer and he says, “You’re in my parking spot, Princess.”

She blinks. Clarke’s fairly certain that this spot didn’t have anything labelling it as reserved when she pulled into it. So, like any person would do, she steps out of the car to check. As she suspected, there’s nothing there saying that it belongs to anyone else and she whirls around to tell him as much.

He just scoffs at her in response. “Listen, I know you’re a newbie and all but that’s been my spot for the last two and a half years, so if you could kindly fuck off, it would be much appreciated.”

“Wow, a real gentleman, aren’t you?” she hisses, and then makes a point about pressing the button on her keys so that her car locks with a cheery chirp. “This is the first time I’ve seen you all week so maybe you should be the one kindly fucking off.”

“All week, hmm?” he says, eyebrows raising, “Funny because in my two years of being here this is the first time I’m seeing you so.”

The way he says it makes it seem like _she’s_ the one at fault for taking an unmarked parking spot. It causes her hackles to raise and she finds herself sniping, “Well maybe if you spent less time being a diva and more time trying to be punctual, then maybe you’d have your precious parking space!”

His eyebrows seem to have disappeared up his hairline. “A diva?” he sputters, before glaring at her once more, “Please. As if you’re one to talk, Princess.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” she huffs, before stomping her foot and saying, “And stop calling me Princess, dammit! You don’t know me.”

“I know your type,” he drawls, and his lips twist into a smirk. The changes in his expression is going to give her whiplash, she’s sure of it, what with the way he keeps going from angry to smug. He presses on, “Whiny rich girl trying to make it big. Thinks that the world has fucked her over and she’s out to show them that she’s more than just a pretty face.” She can’t help but wince as his words hit a little bit too close to home, and his smirk just widens. “If the glass slipper fits, Cinderella. Try not to break it.”

“Are you always this much of an asshole to strangers?” she fires back after a moment of hesitation, “Or am I special?”

“What do you think?”

“ _I_ think,” she sniffs, hiking her bag up on her shoulder, “That you’re a dick and I hope someone spills hot coffee on that pretty face of yours.”

And with that she turns on her heel, stalking off to stage four where they’re set to begin shooting today. He yells something indistinguishable from behind her and Clarke doesn’t even bother to turn around, just flips him off over her shoulder.

She stomps on to set, seething over the altercation until Raven calls her out on it with a, “Who pissed in your coffee?”

“Haven’t had any as yet,” she replies, slamming her bag down on the table and reaching for the pot of the aforementioned drink.

“No wonder you’re glaring daggers at everything that moves. Coffee is essential, Griffin. It’s our ambrosia.”

That gets a smile out of her and she feels the tension slowly start to work it’s way out of her shoulders. Clarke quickly fixes her cuppa to suit- two sugars with the barest dab of milk- and takes a huge sip, sighing as it washes down her throat. “I can believe that,” she says and takes another sip. “But it wasn’t my caffeinated- or lack thereof- self that brought this on. Just some asshole in the car park.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I feel like I know him from somewhere so he’s probably an actor too, but god, he’s such a dick. I wanted to punch him in the face.”

“Wouldn’t put it past you. We all know you’ve got a mean right hook.”

Her cheeks colour. “I’m sorry, if Finn had the gall to try and get back with you at your movie premier you’re telling me you wouldn’t punch him?”

“No, I’d kick him in the balls and take a picture to use as the newest reaction photo. Caption: when you get hit by the feels.”

Clarke snorts a laugh and drains the rest of her coffee. “I better head to hair and makeup. I have a feeling they’re going to need some time to tame this into some form of neatness,” she says, gesturing to the tangle of blonde hair thrown together in a sloppy bun at the top of her head.

Raven nods, reaching for a peach. “I should probably do the same. After we’re done we can raid craft services before Jasper and Monty get to it.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

After that, everything is smooth sailing and she easily pushes the incident from her mind, getting into character as they call them on set. They shoot three scenes that day, and she and Raven learn how to fire fake guns. It’s fun, and when they’re done, Monty suggests that they all head for celebratory pizza at Roma’s around the corner. Clarke feels right at home with them, with all of her co stars, as they chat and trade stories over weak beer and greasy pizza, and when she and Raven stumble back home later, she pretty much just collapses into bed, only toeing off her shoes.

The rest of the week goes by quickly, and on Friday she’s the only one who needs to go in, leaving Raven at home watching cartoons curled up on their couch with a bowl of soggy cereal. It’s easier than she expects, having her as a roommate. They’re still careful around each other, but by each passing day the walls are slowly being chipped away.

“Want me to pick up anything on my way back?” she asks while slipping on her shoes.

She shakes her head. “Nah. Don’t forget though, I invited Blake over later. I can’t believe you’ve been here a week and you haven’t met him yet.”

“You mean your imaginary friend who lives down the hall?” Clarke teases.

“He’s not imaginary,” she insists, laughter colouring her voice, “I don’t know why you keep insisting he is.”

“Probably because you keep referencing him but I’ve never seen him.”

“Because he’s working somewhere else in the meantime. He left Monday evening.”

“Uh huh,” she says, still sceptical, “Sure. I’m going now. Say hi to your other imaginary friends for me!”

She hears a loud, “They’re not imaginary, dammit Griffin!” as the door shuts behind her and can’t help but grin to herself as she jogs down the stairs.

Work is a bit boring today with most of the cast not there. She’s needed for two scenes with a couple extras, one fake fight where her stunt double is doing most of the work, and then the resulting interrogation scene. It’s nice, but dull, and she takes to snapchatting Raven various pieces of set equipment until she flips her off, not answering to anymore after she presumably switches off her phone.

She gets to leave early when her scenes are done, and stops off at the bakery around the corner to pick up some pastries before heading home.

Their voices can be heard through the door as she toggles the lock, and she can't help but bite back a smile when she hears Raven bark out a laugh.

“Honey I'm home,” she announces as she flings the door open, kicking her shoes off in the hallway.

There’s a muffled, “In here!” coming from the kitchen as well as the tantalising waft of spices that has her stomach growling.

The first thing she notices as she rounds the corner is the guy standing by the stove all messy hair and deliciously broad shoulders, stirring the pot while Raven goes on about something and her mouth waters for more than one reason. The second thing she notices when he turns a bit, giving her a glimpse of his side profile, is that he looks shockingly familiar. That one is fleeting however, only to be replace by the third and final thing, when Raven finally sees her standing on the edge of the kitchen.

“Clarke!” she yells out in greeting, and when the man turns around, giving her a good look at his face, her jaw actually drops.

Because standing there in the middle of their kitchen, looking surly as ever is the parking space asshole.

Seriously, what the _fuck_.

“Clarke,” Raven says again, sliding off her perch on the counter, “This is Bellamy. The one who you thought was imaginary.”

“I wish he was imaginary,” she mumbles under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I said we’ve met,” she corrects herself with a tight smile and that’s when his lips curl up in a lazy smirk.

“That we have,” he drawls, shoving his hands in his pants pocket. He nods at her in acknowledgement. “Princess.”

“Douchebag.”

Raven’s looking between the two of them, perplexed. “How-” she falters, eyebrows creasing together.

“He's the carpark asshole,” she says, flat, and that’s when Raven laughs, loud and bright, bouncing off the kitchen cabinets.

“Nah,” she smirks, patting him on the shoulder, “Just a regular asshole.”

“Thanks Reyes.”

She whirls around to face him, smacking his bicep lightly. “I can’t believe the girl you were complaining about was Clarke. And you,” she says, cutting a glance back at her, “Why didn’t you tell me it was Bellamy? I would have helped come up with some more colourful insults for him.”

“Again, thank you Reyes.”

Clarke feels her cheeks pink and she ducks her head, saying sheepishly, “I uh, I didn’t exactly recognise him at first.”

She doesn’t have to look up to know that the pair is gaping at her. Well, Raven is gaping at her that is. Bellamy on the other hand is still trying to be cool and pretend that he’s not bothered by her admission.

“... Seriously?”

“It’s not like I watch the show okay?” she defends herself, “I only know about it in passing.”

“Yeah, but he was on like every news outlet for the first year of it because of his fuck ups.”

“Why am I friends with you again?” Bellamy asks to no one in particular and they both ignore him.

Raven is still frowning at Clarke, looking at her a bit suspiciously. “You really didn’t know?”

“Trust me, if I knew who he was and that he was your friend, I wouldn’t have said half of those things,” she sighs, using both her hands to push her hair back. She looks at Bellamy properly for the first time since she realised who he was, and he’s just as stupid hot as before. It makes her frown. “So does being friends with my roommate mean that I’ll have to see you around here often?” she asks, and his grin turns wicked.

“Something like that,” he shrugs, being deliberately vague, and turns back to the stew bubbling away on the stove.

Next to him, Rave rolls her eyes and says, “He lives down the hall and he’s usually over most nights if our schedules permits it.”

Clarke feels her eyes flicker close of their own accord. “Great,” she sighs, and then they snap open almost immediately. “Wait, he _lives_ here?” She looks between the two of them before pinching the bridge of her nose. “What, is there some sort of celebrity quota the complex needs to fill or something? Is James Franco gonna pop up downstairs while I’m getting my mail?”

“Why James Franco?” Bellamy butts in mildly as he turns the gas off, “Why not Dave? He’s obviously the better Franco.”

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up.”

“Both of you shut the fuck up,” grouses Raven, stretching up to get the bowls from the top cabinet. Her brace squeaks as she moves and they all wince.

“Need some engine oil for that, Reyes?” he asks, elbowing her out of the way to grab the bowls and he starts ladling the food into them.

“Nah. I just forgot to see about it this weekend,” she says, setting the table. Clarke remains standing there in the kitchen, awkwardly holding the box of pastries. “Got sidetracked with a new show and all.”

“Uh huh,” he says, before his eyes drift over to Clarke and he lifts an eyebrow, “What, you just gonna stand there all day, Princess?”

She jumps, startled, and throws a weak glare at him. “No. Shut up,” she replies, placing the box on the counter and grabbing the cutlery from the drawer. Raven pops open a bottle of wine and soon enough they’re all sitting in silence, eating. She has to begrudgingly admit that whatever it is he made (‘Kaldereta,’ he had said, and the word sounds clumsy in her mouth) tastes amazing. Of course, she’s not going to tell him that; he’s already got a big head and she doesn’t need to feed his ego even more.

(She does however need him to feed them more; his cooking is leagues better than whatever she and Raven can manage to put together.)

When dinner is over and they’ve suffered through the appropriate amount of smalltalk, Clarke finally gives in and asks, “So how did this,” she gestures between them, “Happen?”

Raven cackles and it unnerves her just a bit.

“We hooked up after the Finn-cident,” Raven shrugs unashamedly. Bellamy keeps on smirking but she notices a hint of redness creeping up his neck. “I woke up to this asshole sitting in my kitchen drinking my coffee-”

“Your shitty coffee,” he interjects and she elbows him in the stomach.

“-going through my apartment plans-”

“She wanted to move to the south side,” he snorts derisively, “Can you imagine? She wouldn't survive a week down there with the health junkies.”

“This is my story shut up,” Raven says without any heat behind her words, “But yeah, there we were, the random guy I hooked up with giving me real estate advice while he stood half naked in my kitchen, and the next thing I knew, I was signing the lease and he was helping me move in here..”

“Do all your friendships begin this weird?” Clarke asks, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to hide an amused smile.

She winks at her. “Only the good ones,” she says, and that gets a laugh out of her.

Clarke offers to do the dishes after while they set up shop in the living room, bickering goodnaturedly over whose turn it is to pick something to watch on Netflix. She can’t stop her eyes from straying though, looking over at him ever so often for some strange reason.

Bellamy is- an enigma.

On one hand, he seems like the type of person she wouldn’t mind having as a friend. His humour isn’t quite as dark as Raven’s but it’s drier, and he says almost everything with his lips curled up in a smirk, not to mention they have most of the same views on certain topics. That doesn’t stop them from arguing all the time though; at the studio, at the apartment, it doesn’t matter where, they always find something to disagree over.

“You guys are ridiculous,” Raven says, rolling her eyes. They were running through lines on their break when Bellamy appeared, immediately throwing himself on the couch next to Clarke, despite the fact that there were several other seats available.

“He’s ridiculous,” she sulks, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow just because.

Bellamy reacts like the mature adult he is by sticking his tongue out at her and swatting her thigh easily. “I’m just here to say hi to my friend Raven while I’m on lunch,” he says, loosening his tie, “Dunno what the Princess’ reason is though.”

“I work here,” she replies, flat. “You’re literally on set where I work. Where else would I be?”

“Jesus, you guys are headache,” sighs Raven when they start bickering once more, although Clarke can hear the love peeking through. Somewhat.

“It’s his fault,” she mumbles, and he tugs on her hair.

Raven groans again, swatting them both her rolled up script. “The two of you are children,” she announces, ignoring their indignant yelps of pain.

It doesn’t help that Bellamy always seems to be around. He spends most of his lunch breaks on their set, dragging Miller over with him, and then spends most of that time antagonising Clarke. When they’re not filming, he’s over on their couch, needling them into watching the most boring documentaries ever, and she’s certain that the only reason Raven hasn’t kicked him out yet is because he makes them dinner most nights.

“Don’t you have your own apartment?” she somewhat grouses as soon as she spots him lounging on the couch one Sunday morning. She’s just woken up, still squinting suspiciously at everything, and it’s not fair that he still manages to look so good that early in the morning. It accounts for about 30% of her bad mood.

Bellamy just gives her a quick up down, a hint of smirk making itself known and Clarke refuses to fidget, refuses to pull down the shorts she knows are riding high on her thigh, refuses to brush back the tangled snarl of hair partially obscuring her vision. “But if I was in my apartment then how would I see your beautiful face, sunshine?”

She doesn’t even dignify that with a response, just trudging her way across the room into the kitchen where Raven is already sitting at the table, gulping down coffee like it’s her job.

“Does he ever go home?” she asks, rummaging around the fridge for some milk. “How’d you even put up with him before?”

She just shrugs. “He’s been around more often now that you’re here” she says offhand, and Clarke glances sidelong at her, stopping mid stretch for the cereal box.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she shrugs, but she can’t quite hide the smug little smile pulling at her mouth. “Nothing at all.”

She’s fairly certain that it’s _something_ , so she presses on, “Come on. Obviously you meant something with it. What aren’t you telling me?”

Raven slumps back in her chair with a roll of her eyes and pitches her voice low so that doesn’t carry. “Look, he used to visit before, yeah, but since you’re living here now, he’s coming over every day and actually leaving his set to come to ours. What do you think might have caused the change of heart.”

Clarke narrows her eyes at her. “What are you insinuating, Reyes?”

“You know damn well what I’m insinuating, Griffin.”

“I know that it sounds like a load of bullshit because-”

“Because it’s so implausible that Bellamy might like you?” she cuts in with a raised eyebrow, “I’ve known that boy for a while. There’s something going on with him. There’s something going on with both of you, and when it finally happens, I’m going to say I told you so.”

“Please,” Clarke scoffs as she drowns her cereal in milk, “Nothing is going to happen between us.”

* * *

 

 

**_J U N E_ **

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says stumbling back. His eyes are wide and frenzied, lips red, and Clarke’s fairly certain she looks the same way.

She runs a shaky hand through her hair, possibly making it even messier but she doesn’t really care, not when she has bigger things to worry about like the fact that she just kissed Bellamy Blake while in the middle of arguing with him.

“Fuck.”

He breathes out a shaky laugh, fidgeting with the tie around his neck. “Pretty sure I just said that Princess.”

“It deserves to be said again because- _fuck_.”

“Eloquent aren’t you?” he mutters, looking everywhere in the room but at her and she feels a frown tugging down the corners of her mouth.

“This never happened,” she tells him, taking a step closer and forcing him to look at her. “And this is never going to happen again. Got it?”

A muscle ticks in his jaw, eyes hard when he finally meets her gaze. “Whatever the hell you want, Princess,” he says with abit of an edge, and she nods once before stalking out.

It’s only once she’s out of sight- of him, the trailer and everything else- tucked away in a dusty corridor that leads between studios, does she lean against the wall, breathing shakily as she brushes the pads of her fingers across her lips, still tingling.

“Never again,” she mutters, already feeling the migraine building at the base of her skull.

 

* * *

 

 _now_ _  
_ **_M A Y_ **

There’s sunlight streaming through the blinds, and Clarke groans, throwing an arm over her eyes as she moves further away from Bellamy. It’s warm, even with the air conditioner on full blast, and her body is sticky with sweat underneath the light linen blanket. She kicks it off with a huff, hoping that maybe she can finally lapse back into a state of blissful unconsciousness, but it’s to no avail.

The bed vibrates with unheard chuckles and she cranes her neck to throw a glare at him from over her shoulder.

“Shut up,” she groans. He's ridiculous, lying spread out on the bed without a stitch of clothing to his name, skin all tanned and golden while his hair is as tousled mess. It's upsetting how good he looks, and Clarke shoves her face in as pillow so that she doesn't have to watch him a moment longer.

He just laughs again, this time louder and shuffles closer, ignoring her mewl of displeasure as he pulls his body flush against hers. “Good morning Princess,” he croons in her ear before placing a line of sloppy kisses down the side of her neck.

She squirms in his arms, trying in vain to bat him away, but he just laughs again, letting his scruff chafe against her skin as he grabs both her wrists and pin her hands above her head, sending a pang of want through her.

“Asshole,” she mutters, even she as tilts her head back to let him suck softly on her pulse point. The hand holding her wrists together applies a bit more pressure to them and he presses more firmly against her until she whines. “It’s hot,” she complains.

His teeth grazes her earlobe when he shifts, and she sighs, relaxing into him. “Mmm, that you are,” he says into her skin, free hand moving to palm her breast. Her lips part in a silent moan when he squeezes it, thumb flicking over her nipple, and he ruts against her ass, letting her feel him, already hard and hot.

“I’m all sweaty and sticky,” she warns, though her protests are getting more and more feeble by the minute, especially when he nips her gently, hand leaving her chest and moving south to brush across her clit.

His responding hum reverberates through her and she whimpers as his fingers tease her cunt. “Well, let’s see if we could make you sweatier and stickier,” he says, and she has to huff out a laugh, startled and bright, because he’s _ridiculous_.

“What a- _oh_ ,” the rest of her sentence is replaced by a moan when he easily lifts her leg, hitching it over his hip, and slides in, all hot and heavy and perfect.

She whimpers again when he grunts into her neck as he bottoms out, and they stay like that for a moment, just basking in the feel of each other before he finally starts to move.

He can only give her short, shallow thrusts like this, but more than makes up for it by using the pad of his thumb to rub gentle circles on her clit. She grinds back against him, wrists straining against his hands, but he doesn’t let up, no matter how much she asks.

Then he’s hitching her leg up higher, changing the angle inside of her that has her seeing white, almost choking on her tongue as she spasms against him.

“Fuck, Bellamy, right _there_ ,” she begs, turning her head blindly in search of his lips, and her obliges her, giving her a kiss that’s more tooth than lip, but she still whimpers, teetering on the edge.

Sweat gathers across their bodies, and she can feel her hair sticking to her temples, to the back of her neck, and he makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat when she inadvertently clenches down on him. He finally lets go of her hands, only grab hold of her thigh, keeping it in place as he repeats the motion from before that has her seeing stars.

“Better, Princess?” he asks, voice strained, and all she can do is nod, too busy panting to string actual words together. She clutches on to the pillow when he does it a third time, free hand darting back down to pinch her clit, needing something to anchor her to reality.

“I’m so- I’m so,” she almost sobs, thrashing, and his laugh is low and gravelly behind her, lips fastening to her pulse point and causing her to cry out. “ _Bellamy_.”

He soothes her with sweet nothings muttered in her ear, but it does nothing to quelch the burning need inside her. Only when bears down on her clit hard, thrusting in as deep as he can go, does she keen loudly, walls fluttering around him as she comes.

It takes them both by surprise, the sheer intensity of it, and for one brilliant, mind numbing moment, everything goes blank, and Clarke just feels as though she’s blissfully floating in space, electricity pulsing beneath her skin.

She comes back slowly, her harsh breaths mingling with his as he softens inside of her, and he squeezes the fleshy part of her stomach gently before rolling onto his back. She goes with him, twisting so that she now lies on his chest, sweat soaked skin sticking together, too lazy to actually go and clean up.

Bellamy pets the hair away from her face and pecks her on nose, laughing when she wrinkles it in response. “Morning,” he drawls again, hand trailing up her spine. “We should probably get up.”

She hums noncommittally, letting her head droop forward on his chest with a sigh. “I’m not moving for at least another hour,” she tells him, and he chuckles again, brushing his lips across the crown of her head. “Don’t let it get to your head” she tacks on when she notices him crowing, and he pinches her thigh in response.

It’s Friday.

She’s spent almost an entire week at his apartment, shirking her responsibilities in favour of playing house with Bellamy.

The intimacy should be too much: staying several nights in a row, cuddling with him after sex while he does things like that, but Clarke can’t find it in her to muster up the energy to care, not when her blood is still roaring in her eyes and sheets have yet to cool.

“We got time,” she thinks she hears him say through the fog settling in her mind, squeezing her hand, before she finally drifts off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _before: 10 months ago_ _  
_ **_J U L Y_ **

They get a late invite to comic con.

Only Raven and herself is going, along with Kane, and it’s not even a real panel, just a screening of the pilot episode to a group of maybe fifty people, and then fielding whatever questions the crowd might have.

It’s her first major event ever since she stumbled back on the scene two months ago and Clarke’s equal parts excited and terrified.

“Hey,” says Raven, nudging her gently as they turn out the sheets. They’re staying at Clarke’s apartment instead of renting a hotel, since it’s only a half an hour drive from the convention centre. “Relax,” she says, “It’s not like we’re going to be dealing with a lot of press or anything. Just smile and look pretty.”

“Easy for you to say,” she mumbles under her breath, and this time there’s nothing gentle in the way Raven elbows her.

The morning that they’re scheduled to go to Comic Con she’s fine. Clarke gets up and helps Raven make pancakes for breakfast, she showers and does her makeup, donning a cute sundress, and even going as far as to make sure her curls are in some semblance of order. She’s _fine_.

Raven has to press her hand against her thigh to stop her from shaking her leg.

She throws her a thin smile in return. “What, you’re not gonna buy me dinner first?” she tries to joke, but even she can hear how weak it sounds, and Raven gives her a meaningful squeeze.

“You got this.”

And she’s right. Mostly.

The screening is fine, the audience seeing to be genuinely interested in the show, and they even garner more than a few laughs which probably made her disproportionately happy, but whatever. Clarke is glad people are liking something that she helped to make. They do get asked a few questions later on, just a handful of things about the show that Kane answers mostly, and afterwards, a couple fans ask for pictures and autographs.

It’s all very textbook, but she breathes a sigh of relief once it’s all over, wringing out her shoulders.

“See?” says Raven with a grin as they walk out of the hall. The adjacent hallway is mercifully empty, free of any onlookers for a few moments. “You made it through.” They’ve got the rest of the day for themselves and while Clarke would rather go home immediately, Raven convinced her to stay a little while, just an hour or so.

“I guess it wasn’t that bad,” she concedes, and Raven nudges her until she ducks her head in a grin. “Fine, okay, it was fun. Jeez you have pointy elbows.”

She just smiles angelically at her, and ducks out of the way before Clarke can tug on her ponytail. “Everything’s better with Raven Reyes around,” she announces.

“That your new tagline, Reyes?” a voice drawls from behind them and they both come to a stop.

She immediately recognises the speaker and her eyes fall shut as she takes a calming breath, tilting her head heavenwards. She does not need this right now, especially not when her day was actually starting to look up. Raven on the other hand has no qualms about whipping around with a grin, saying a cheery, “Hey Bellamy,” in greeting.

He nods in acknowledgement before sidling alongside Clarke, who still has her eyes wrenched shut. “Princess,” he says, lightly hip checking her.

That’s when she opens her eyes, giving him a clinical up and down. He looks good as always, wearing a leather jacket over a soft tee with a faded Hogwarts insignia on it, and his glasses are perched lopsidedly on his nose in a way that is certainly not adorable. There’s also a hat resting on his head, which is new. She thinks it might be a Pokemon one, but Clarke doesn’t want to spare him the extra thought.

She purses her lips. “Asshole.”

Bellamy chuckles, holding the door open for them as they enter a main part of the convention centre. People are swarming all over the place and while no one outright stares at them, Clarke begins to feel the anxiety creeping back up her spine and quickens her pace, Raven right at her side.

“Hey, I’m just being nice,” he says, jogging to catch up with them.

“Fuck your nice.”

“Someone’s hostile today,” he frowns, staring down at her. His eyes flit over to Raven and he asks, “What’s up with her?”

“I’m right here you know,” she snaps, “You don’t need to ask other people when I’m literally standing right in front of you.”

“Easy Princess,” he soothes, a hand coming down to rest on her shoulder. There’s still a dip between his eyebrows as he appraises her carefully, and Clarke looks away, feeling a flush creep up the back of her neck. Behind her, she can feel Raven shaking with silent laughter.

“Leave me alone,” she says, shrugging off his arm and stalking off. She doesn’t get very far before the other two catch up to her, Bellamy catching her by her wrist this time.

He opens his mouth to say something- no doubt another snide jab at her- but is interrupted by a girl, clutching her phone tightly and staring at him in wide eyed amazement.

“I’m sorry, but can I get a quick photo please?” she says in a rush, “I’m a huge fan of your show!”

He presses his lips together in a line, giving Clarke one last look, before turning to the girl with a charming smile. “Sure,” he says, posing for the selfie, and the next thing he knows, there’s a whole crowd around them, asking for autographs and pictures, blocking them in.

Honestly, the only thing that stops her from taking off then and there is Raven’s hand resting on the crook of her elbow through the entire ordeal. Besides, almost all of them are for Bellamy anyway. Hardly anyone spares them a second glance.

They must have been standing there for over five minutes before he says, loud and clear, “Sorry guys, I have to get to lunch, but I’ll be doing a signing at two if you want to come over.”

There’s general murmurs of disappointment from the crowd and they start to thin out. But, before they leave completely, Bellamy curls his arm around her shoulders with a, “Come on, Princess,” that sends a hushed whispers throughout the crowd and the flush that was prickling under her skin moments before slams back into her, full force, no doubt turning her entire face splotchy and red.

Raven is all out cackling behind them and the moment they’re out of the public eye, Clarke plans on ripping her a new one for her betrayal.

“You’re such a dick,” she hisses at Bellamy, trying to escape his hold. He just pulls her even further into his side and ducks his head to whisper,

“I’m doing you a favour.”

She tries to ignore how warm and solid he is, how he smells like cinnamon and pine trees, but it’s proving to be difficult. “Yeah, well, you can shove your favour up your ass,” she mutters, and he throws his head back, barking out a laugh.

“You’ve got a real gratitude problem, you know that?” he says, almost bitterly.

“No, just a you problem,” she retorts in a saccharine voice.

“Easy kids,” says Raven, not even bothering to hide her smirk. “Be careful. You never know what this is going to look like to the outside eye.”

“There’s only one way murder can look to the outside eye, Raven” Clarke says, and he just scoffs.

“I try to do one nice thing for the Princess and what do I get?” he says, mostly to himself, finally letting his arm slip off her shoulders as they near the end of this hall. “Not even a thank you. Last time I try to help you.”

“Good I don’t want your help,” she snaps, pretending that she doesn’t miss the heat and heaviness of his arm around her. Their fingers brush together when they walk though, and neither of them make any attempt to create some space between them.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

“Oh my god, you’re like an old married couple,” says Raven exasperatedly and they both turn to glare at her.

“Shut up Reyes,” they chorus before snapping their glares over on each other.

“Jesus,” she mutters with a roll of her eyes. “I’m just saying, keep acting like that and people are going to assume things.”

Bellamy makes a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “Please,” he says, leading them down the corridor, presumably where the rest of his cast is hanging out, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

 

Her phone barely even rings once before she’s swiping accept, not even sparing a glance at the caller ID. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she deadpans, voice scratchy with disuse.

On the other end of the phone, Anya sighs, a common reaction to dealing with Clarke’s mishaps. “What happened yesterday?” she asks again, already sounding tired. That’s how she knows this is a big problem, because Anya never sounds tired in the morning.

“Nothing!” she says, flailing wildly, “Seriously, we were arguing as usual. That’s it. Nothing about that screams romance.”

“So he didn’t call you ‘Princess’?” she asks dubiously.

Clarke hesitates, biting her lip. “Well, yes,” she relents, “But he always calls me that. It’s meant as an insult not a pet name!”

Anya seems to ignore her. “And did he put his arm around you?”

She hesitates again. “... Yes.”

There’s another sigh coming from her end of the phone, and Clarke screws her eyes shut as she waits for the verbal smackdown.

“Come on Griffin,” Anya starts, “You’ve been in this business long enough, you know how the public perceives things. Especially things like this.”

She swipes a hand through her tangle of blonde curls, tossing it up in a slipshod bun. “Can’t you skew it?” she asks, “I’m not involved with him, I do not want to be involved with him. At all. Forever. Never in my life.”

There’s silence on the other end for almost a full minute before she says slowly, “We could just let it all blow over. Dating rumours crop up everyday.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “Are you suggesting that we just leave it alone.”

“It should disappear by itself. After all, this is the first time someone alluded to your relationship with Blake as anything but professional. A lot of people are probably going to flat out deny it,” she tells her. “Let the internet work it out for itself. You’ll be old news by yesterday.”

“One can only hope,” she says, shoulders slumping. “Why did I come back to Hollywood? Why didn’t I start my hopefully lucrative llama farm?”

“Goodbye Griffin.”

The phone goes dead and Clarke pulls it away to glare at it. “See, my llamas would put up with my bullshit Anya. They wouldn’t abandon me because of it.”

It’s only a few minutes to eight, but she can’t go back to sleep so with a disgruntled full bodied sigh, she rolls out of bed to get started on breakfast. They’ve only been here for three days so far, driving back up tomorrow, so Clarke is fully aware that he fridge is woefully scant, even with the groceries they picked up on the way. There are some eggs left over though, so she scrambles them, and makes some toast to go with it.

She’s given into temptation, scrolling through her Twitter feed as she waits on Raven to wake up, sipping on her coffee. It’s not terribly bad; it’s the most notifications she’s had in a long while, and most of them happen to be the same question repeated over and over in a multitude of ways: Is there something going on between her and Bellamy?

Her fingers itch to answer them, or maybe even just vague tweet something but she resists, thinking of what Anya would say if she somehow made matters worse. She’s saved from being a torment to herself only a few moments later when Raven stumbles in the kitchen, heading straight for the coffeepot.

“What?” she asks once she’s inhaled half a cup and is now awake enough to notice her glaring at her.

She just groans and slides her phone across the table to her, before dropping her head onto her arms. When Raven reads the headline she snickers, absolutely delighted.

“You called this upon me,” Clarke says, her words muffled by the tabletop. “You fucking called this on me.”

Raven pets her hair aimlessly, doing more harm than good. “Look on the bright side; it’s Perez Hilton. No one takes him seriously.”

“My Twitter feed is like 99% people asking me if Bellamy and I are dating. Or having hate sex.”

“Obviously it’s the latter.”

“ _Obviously_ it’s _neither_.”

“Oh come on,” she says, throwing her hands up, “You’re telling me that a little bit of hate fucking isn’t going to fix this-” she makes some sort of weird gesture with her hand that Clarke can’t even begin to comprehend, “-this _whatever_ it is going on between you two?”

Her traitorous mind jumps to the kiss, the way he felt so hot and solid beneath her hands as he pushed her against the wall, the way she let her fingers tangle in his hair, and she flushes slightly.

Never one to miss anything, Raven narrows her eyes at her. “Unless you already did that,” she says slowly, taking in every bit of emotion that flits across her face.

“I didn’t,” she says, dropping her gaze to the worn and scarred tabletop. “But I did kiss him.”

“I knew it!”

“It was a one time thing that we both agreed to ignore,” she’s quick to point out, and Raven just snorts.

“Yeah. Right. Okay,” she says, “You can miss me with that ‘one time’ bullshit.”

“Raven!”

“What?” she shrugs, “It’s true. There’s obviously something there.”

“There’s nothing but hate and animosity there.”

“Again, I point you towards hate sex.”

“How about I point you towards the door instead. God, you’re worse than the internet.”

Raven holds her hands up in surrender. “Alright, let’s not get too crazy,” she says, although her smile is still far too smug. She takes another sip of her coffee. “But, just let it be known that I still reserve the right to say I told you so when it does actually happen.”

Clarke just groans, letting her head fall against the table.

 

 

**_A U G U S T_ **

Still though, she can’t help but thinking about Raven’s words.

It’s not her fault okay? Raven just managed to make her mind conjure up some very… interesting scenarios for her over the last couple of weeks.

(She can no longer look at Bellamy for, every time she does so, she can only picture the feel of his mouth on hers and wonder if it’s just as good at other things as it is as kissing, can only wonder what else those hands of his can do, can only wonder if he is as good as Raven slyly told her he was.)

It’s turning her into a mess to be honest, which is why, a few weeks after they returned from Comic Con, she finds herself blurting out, “Raven thinks we should fuck,” as soon as they’re left alone in her trailer.

She waits until he’s taken a sip of water to say it, and she’s rewarded by him hacking his lungs out.

“Pray tell,” he wheezes, “Why does Raven think we should fuck?”

She shrugs. “She says that it’ll help us get along better. You know, once we get rid of all that unwanted sexual tension. Purely platonic fucking and we can actually stand to be in the same room as each other.”

“Right,” he says, and there’s something a bit off to his voice. Clarke looks up almost immediately, frowning, and catches the tail end of some unknown emotion flitting across his face. He hitches an eyebrow when he catches her looking. “And what do _you_ think?”

“What do you mean ‘what do I think’?”

He shrugs. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

She doesn’t understand how he can be so blasé about discussing it, not when she’s already three shades shy of looking like a tomato.

“I think it could be worth a shot,” she says, as casual as possible with her chin held high.

Across from her his mouth curves into the most sinful of smiles and he looks at her through hooded eyes. “You wanna fuck me, Princess?” he murmurs, voice dropping several octaves, and it’s all she can do to not squirm in her seat, warmth settling heavy and wonderful in her stomach.

“It’s just a thought okay? Raven might have definitely been onto something and who knows maybe it could work if we just fucked once and got it out of our systems I mean-”

“Hey Clarke?” he says, interrupting her steady stream of nonsensical babble, and she exhales shakily.

“Yeah?” He’s much closer than she remembered him being, when she looks up, almost to the point where she can count each individual freckle that dusts across his cheeks like stars.

“Shut up,” he murmurs, and then his hand is wrapping around her jaw, bridging the gap between them.

His mouth is just as she remembered, hard and warm, tongue flickering against hers as he pulls her body to him. She makes a soft sound of surprise in the back of her, and her hands immediately dart to his hair, feeling the silky strands sift through her fingers. His thumb traces her cheekbone as he sucks on her bottom lip, and when her nails scritch at his scalp, he lets it go with a soft sigh of pleasure, kissing her even harder.

“Just to be sure,” she pants once they break apart and he starts sucking kisses down the column of her throat, “We’re doing this right?”

“If science says it’ll work then there’s no harm in giving it a shot,” he rasps against her skin, moaning a little when she pulls on his hair.

“Raven said it, not science.”

He mutters something too low for her to hear as he kisses his way down to her cleavage. “Raven is basically a science,” he tells her, looking up from her chest, “I’m taking this off,” he tugs at her camisole.

“I’d be more pissed if you didn’t,” she says, helping him pull it off. She arches up into him with a whimper when he suckles her breast through her bra. “Fuck Bellamy,” she moans as she reaches behind her to undo the clasp, needing to feel his mouth against her skin now.

His other hand skims across waist, leaving a trail of warmth in its path as it heads towards the snap on her jeans, and he deftly opens it with a twist of his fingers, wriggling his hand inside. “Hope this is alright,” he says, fingertips just ghosting across her underwear as he leans down to swirl his tongue around her nipple.

It takes her three tries to formulate words in her head, and even then all she manages to say is, “Very,” trying to tilt her hips to get more friction, feeling the heat of his palm through the thin scrap of fabric.

Only once she’s said so does he dive right in, fingers slipping beneath the flimsy material of her underwear to stroke her and they both swear.

“Fuck Princess,” he swears, leaving a trail of sloppy kisses from one breast to the other as his fingers trace up her slit, “You’re dripping. How long have you been thinking about this?”

He sinks blunt teeth into her sternum until she whines. “A- a while. Ever since Raven brought it up the first time. And then you show up today- _fuck_ ,” she cries, hips jerking up when his index circles her clit, “Do that again. Please Bellamy.”

He chuckles, pressing a smacking kiss to the outside of her breast, and repeats the motion, rubbing his thumb on her clit until she whines again.

“You’ve been thinking about this for what? The past half an hour while I’ve been sitting right next to you?” he asks, accidentally butting her in the chin as he tries to bite at her collarbone. “Shit babe,” he flicks her clit again, “Bet you’re all worked up, huh?”

“ _Bellamy_.”

“Were you thinking about this the whole time?” he presses, rising up so he can get a good look at her face, cheeks flushed and bright while her eyes keep on fluttering, struggling to stay open. He slows his motions until she makes a soft plaintive sound in the back of her throat and he can’t help but bend down to kiss her, sweet. “Come on, Clarke, tell me what you were thinking about,” he lets his teeth graze over her earlobe, “I wanna know Princess.”

“Your hands,” she whines, trying to get him moving again. He has to pin her hips to the couch to stop her from wiggling all over the place and it sends another flare of want through her. “I was thinking about your hands and- and-”

“And what?” he coaxes, letting his fingers ghost across her entrance. She jerks with it, pleasure curling at the base of her spine. “And what else Clarke?”

“Mouth. Your mouth Bellamy.”

His lips curl up in a halfway smirk, pleased, and he presses a single finger into her, just barely. “You want my mouth on you, Princess?” he asks, “You want my mouth on your pussy?”

She clenches down hard at his words, eyes screwed shut, and she feels the warmth flood her face as he laughs lowly.

“Please,” she murmurs, and she feels his lips just barely brush across hers before pressing down more firmly in a soft exploratory kiss. He removes his hands, and she whines at the loss of contact, until he breaks the kiss, sinking to his knees before her.

“Whatever the hell you want, Princess,” he says as he slowly peels her jeans off. He litters featherlight kisses up her leg, mouthing his way across the crease where her leg meets her hip. And then, without warning, he leans forward, nuzzling his face against her lace covered pussy, and she squeaks in surprise. His hands come up to grab her hips, steadying her, and he repeats the motion, this time letting his teeth graze against her clit through the pathetic excuse for underwear, letting her moan.

“So fucking wet,” he mutters again, a hint of awe colouring his voice, and she flushes, trying to get him to put his mouth on her for real.

He does away with her underwear quick enough, leaving them in a sad little crumpled heap on the table next to the couch, before ducking back down to lick a fat stripe straight up her centre that sends her pulse skittering.

One of her legs hooks behind his shoulder as he steadies himself, and the hands pinning her hips flex, lifting her closer to his mouth as he laps at her with long licks, making an enthusiastic sound in the back of his throat. There’s nothing slow and gentle about it, very little finesse to be found, but it still has her curling her toes and keening loudly, especially when he slips one, then two fingers in, scissoring her wide open so he can truly fuck her with his tongue

It doesn’t help that Bellamy seems just as into it as she is, low groans pressing into her flesh, the vibrations of it doing all sorts things to her body.

His mouth is even better than she thought, and within minutes, she’s pulling on his hair when he sucks her clit in his mouth, high pitched whimpers crawling out of her throat as she clenches down hard on his fingers, coming with a broken gasp of his name that has him grunting into the side of her thigh.

He whines when she pulls him up, and Clarke licks the taste of herself out of his mouth while tugging on his stupid robes. He’s still fully dressed in costume while she’s laid out wantonly before him.

“Off,” she commands, nibbling on his lip.

Bellamy pushes her away gently, stealing one last kiss before starting to undo the million and one clasps that holds his costume in place. “Condom?” he asks, voice pitched low in a way that makes her shiver. He can’t seem to look away from her, eyes dark with want and she bites her lip.

“I’m supposed to have one in my bag,” she says, stretching for it, “Hurry up.”

“You always this bossy?”

“You always this slow?”

Her fingers quickly find the foil packet, and she rips it open with her teeth. He’s finally naked by the time she turns back around, and Clarke pushes him down roughly on the couch, climbing onto his lap. He’s all lean muscle, broad and firm beneath her, and she can’t help but run an appreciative hand down his chest as she fixes him to her liking.

Bellamy chuckles, palming her ass as she settles on him. “You _are_ bossy, huh?”

She smiles at him sweetly, wrapping her fingers around his cock and feeling him twitch in her palm. “I just know what I want.”

There’s a muscle ticking in his jaw that she just wants to bite into as he nods, leaning back with a satisifed grin. “Then by all means, Princess.”

In another time she would taste him, drop to her knees and take him in her mouth, but right now she just wants him, already too keyed up from before to do nothing else besides give him one last squeeze and then roll the condom on, quickly sliding onto him in way that has them both groaning.

“God, Clarke,” he shudders, already sounding wrecked. He squeezes her hips again, leaning up to mouth at her breast, and she gasps, rocking down on him.

It takes them a few moments to find their rhythm, and even then it’s still sloppy and hot and oh so good in a way that she finds herself digging her nails into his shoulders. He keeps his mouth on her breasts, and each tug of her nipple sends a shockwave of pleasure directly to her cunt, and she throws her head back with it, moaning.

As they both near climax, their moves get more and more frantic until Bellamy grabs hold of her hips, pulling her down forcefully, her clit catching on the bump of his abs each time, and she comes with a broken moan, slumping against him. It triggers his own release, and he thrusts up into her, once, then twice, before tensing up beneath her, coming with a low growl as he sags into the couch.

For a moment there’s nothing but the sound of their harsh breathing, and she sighs into his neck as the sweat cools on their skin.

“We should probably clean up,” he mumbles, eyes still closed and she nods, slowly sliding off of his dick, moaning a little when her cunt gives a feeble little flutter. He just groans unashamedly, staying right there slumped on her couch, arm thrown over his eyes, until she throws his pants at him.

“Get dressed,” she tells him, slipping into her bathroom to clean up. Her skin is flushed and he made a total mess of her hair, but Clarke pays no attention to it, giving herself a perfunctory rub down with a wash cloth before slipping back into her clothes.

When she returns, he’s almost ready, fidgeting with his tie. He didn’t bother to do anything with his hair, but it’s not like anyone would be able to tell the difference.

Clarke takes a deep breath. “So.”

“So.”

“Think we got it out of our systems?’

He shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. Only time’ll tell I guess.”

“Right.”

They stand there awkwardly for a moment, neither of them willing to meet the other’s eye until Bellamy blurts out, “I feel like I’m supposed to shake your hand or something. You know, properly close the deal.”

It gets a giggle out of her. “Didn’t release we were making a business deal here.”

“Will, you never know,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets with the barest glimmer of a smile. “The handshake makes sure you know that it’s one and done.”

“Oh of course it does.”

Another bout of silence falls over them during which they just stand there, smiling at each other like a pair of loons until Bellamy clears his throat.

“I should, uh, probably get going,” he says, raking a hand through his curls as he squeezes past her to get to the door, and she nods.

“Right.”

“Right.”

He turns around just before he leaves, mouth open to say something else, but he ends up just shaking his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “See you around, Clarke.”

 

* * *

 

 _now_ _  
_ **_M A Y_ **

She should have left already. Instead she’s lying on the couch, spooning with one Bellamy Blake as some mindless cop drama plays out on TV. It’s becoming a habit.

“Can you do that with your gun?” he asks, voice dripping onto her skin like honey. One of his hands have found its way under the sweatshirt she stole from him, resting heavy on her stomach.

She barely even glances at the screen. “I can barely even keep a good grip on my gun,” she confesses. “It’s always falling all over the place.”

He hums in response before they lapse back into comfortable silence for the rest of the show. She’s more than content to lay there, feeling his warmth all around her, his breath stirring her hair, his heart beating against her back.

It’s nice.

Eventually she does have to leave, glancing at the clock on the wall before saying, “I should probably go. It’s getting late.”

Bellamy makes a soft, plaintive sound in the back of his throat and pulls her closer. “Or you could stay. Raven’s flight doesn’t get in for another three hours. You have some time to kill.” His hand skims across her stomach, light, and she actually finds herself considering it.

With a shake of her head she sighs, “No, I really need to get going. I still need to pick up dinner before she gets here. And make it look like I was actually living in the apartment these past few weeks.”

He chuckles at that, nosing the nape of her neck. “Point,” he says, even as he tightens his hold on her, reluctant to see her go. “Or we could take a nap, order pizza and forget about cleaning in the first place. You know, like what we’ve been doing everyday for the past week and a half.”

She snorts, batting his hands away and finally sitting up. “Right. And then what will I tell Raven when she asks why the apartment’s been abandoned for a month?”

He’s silent, causing her to glance at him while she stretches out her arms. Bellamy is never one to shy away from telling her what he really thinks, and his sudden apprehension has her tilting her head quizzically. Eventually he looks back up at her for a brief second, and then sets his jaw, fingers trailing across her skin distractedly.

“You could always tell her the truth,” he hedges, hand tightening on her waist and she freezes mid stretch.

“Why?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

Bellamy shrugs, still overly casual and unable to meet her gaze. “I mean, we’ve been sneaking around for a while now. Aren’t you tired of it?”

“No,” she says, slowly, “Because we both said that this was a one time thing, and when it wasn’t, we both agreed not to mention it to anyone. For both our sakes.”

“Well, things have changed now, haven’t they?” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, “We’ve been doing this for nine months, Clarke.”

“We’ve been doing this _on and off_ for nine months, Bellamy.”

He ignores her, pressing on, “You can’t tell me everything's the same, especially not after December,” and when he finally looks up at her, her stomach drops.

Ever so slowly, Clarke stands up, stepping away from the couch and out of his reach. The TV is nothing more than white noise in the background.

“Actually, I can,” she says, voice brittle, and he freezes.

They never used to hook up at home, they never used to stay over, they never used to share inside jokes and smiles, tweeting and subtweeting each other, posting selfies together for the world to see.

“Because this has been kept separate from the rest of our lives in a neat little box.”

He sneaks kisses from her sometimes when he comes over to spend the evening with her and Raven, holding her hand under the table. They get asked questions about each other at cons, and she distinctly remembers that one time he told a fan that she was ‘fucking amazing and a phenomenal actress who he’s glad to know.’ She has a drawer of her clothes in his wardrobe, but she still chooses to steal his.

“Nothing has changed, Bellamy, not for me. Not between now and last fucking August.”

She thinks about the green apple shampoo he keeps in his shower for her, the herbal tea he stocks in his cupboards. She thinks about how she’s memorised his favourite books, can rattle off his favourite passages from _The Iliad_ to a t, the way he won’t eat ice cream unless it’s in a cup with the cone crumbled into it.

Bellamy sits on the couch, unmoving except for the clench of his jaw that has the muscle popping.

“So I guess that’s that then?” he asks quietly, looking up at her, face blank.

She nods once, her chest feeling too tight. “Yes,” she replies, just as quiet and weak as before, and then turns on her heel to leave. He doesn’t say another word, not even when she shoves her feet in her shoes and walks out, the door closing behind her with a soft snick.

Clarke fumbles with the key to her own apartment, the too long sleeves getting in the way and she ends up swiping furiously at the frustrated tears that have inexplicably gathered in her eyes. Once inside, she braces herself on the counter, taking deep breaths as her vision blurs for one startling moment, trying to ease the pain in her chest.

Her eyes are still too bright when she pulls away, but Clarke steadies herself, pulling of his sweatshirt and throwing it in the dark recess of her closet before starting to clean, trying to get her mind off of things.

It works, somewhat, but later, once Raven is home and safely bundled in bed, she sits with her phone in her lap. Bellamy is the second person in her inbox, right under Raven’s flight confirmation, sending her a stupid pick up line a few hours ago. She opens up the chat and slowly types out her message with shaking fingers.

_i think we should stop seeing each other_

His response comes seconds later.

_fine._

The words from before have left a bitter taste in her mouth that, no matter how hard she tries, she can’t get rid of it. It’s the taste of a lie and heartbreak all rolled up in one, and this time she can’t rid the tears with just a few swipes.

 

* * *

 

 

 _before: 5 months ago_ _  
_ **_D E C E M B E R_ **

“What,” she says flatly, still staring at Raven, with her arms crossed.

The other girl just smiles at her. “You heard me.”

“What I heard was that you want me to take your place at the award show next week because your leg is giving you trouble. The very same award show that you were attending with Bellamy,” Clarke says, still terribly unimpressed, “Surely I heard wrong.”

“No, you heard correct. And I already cleared it with Anya. She thinks it’s a good idea, especially since the show is doing so well.”

“You talked to _Anya_?” she sputters, “Why the fuck would you do that?”

Raven shrugs, looking entirely too innocent from where she laid spread out across their couch. “Because I know that you wouldn’t do it if I didn’t bring in the big guns. I’m covering all my bases.”

“Goddammit Reyes.” She scrubbed a weary hand across her face.

“So is that a yes?” she asked, phone already in hand, “Because I can’t wait let the internet know about this. Your ‘bellarke’ fans are going to lose their minds.”

She can just imagine, and she groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. Anya’s solution of ‘letting things blow over’ had backfired stupendously and Clarke is certain that at this point everyone and their mother wanted to see her date Bellamy Blake.

“I fucking hate you.”

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

 

 

That’s how Clarke finds herself a week later, being ambushed by a team of make up artists as they help get her ready for the night while Raven sits off to the side with an oversized bag of crisps, flat out cackling at her.

“I really fucking hate you,” she grits out, trying to at her while one of the make up hands fix her eyebrows.

Raven just laughs again, wincing a bit as she shifts her leg. On one hand, Clarke knows that her leg has been giving her trouble these past few days, especially because of the cold weather, but on the other, she _really_ hates her for making her do this.

“You should see your timeline right now,” she snorts, “Everyone is so frenzied.”

“I’m going to beat you to death with a curling iron.”

She just blows a kiss at her, continuing to chortle while she scrolls through her phone. “The general consensus is that you’re either going to tell the world you’re finally dating, or let everyone know that you’re pregnant and Bellamy’s the baby daddy.”

“The only thing keeping me sane right now is picturing stabbing you multiple times with a mascara wand,” she hisses, yelping when someone pulls on her hair a bit too roughly.

“Look on the bright side,” says Raven, “At least you too get along now. Somewhat. And I can promise that Bellamy is an absolute joy to be around during these things. He’s almost better than a hip flask.”

She’s glad that Raven’s not paying attention to her, for she would have caught the blush that paints her cheeks pink at the mention of their relationship.

Turns out that sleeping with Bellamy Blake couldn’t be a one time thing.

Who knew?

It’s not a regular thing, but they still do it often enough that they’re no longer snapping each other’s heads off, but instead engaging in playful banter.

It’s nice. Somewhat.

Clarke would just like everyone to know that it only started up because he’s just really, really good with his hands.

And mouth.

And… everything else.

She’s jerked out of her reverie by a knock on the door, and Raven practically _flounces_ over to open it, a massive shiteating grin spread across her face as she does so.

“Bellamy!” she hears her say, bright and happy, “Come in. Clarke’s still not ready yet; give her a couple more minutes.”

“You’re awfully perky for someone who claimed to be in debilitating pain,” he says, sounding suspicious.

“It’s the painkillers. Come sit!”

She catches a glimpse of him as he passes in front of her door and well. Her jaw doesn’t quite drop, but it certainly comes close to doing that, and her cheeks just heat even further.

Bellamy looks really good in a suit.

Like insanely good.

Raven darts back into the room, and, after taking one look at her, she bursts out laughing again, even as she throws herself on the bed. She’s having far too much fun with this, and Clarke kind of wants to throw something at him.

“You so want to hit that,” the brunette whispers, smug.

 _I am already hitting that_ , she almost says, the words on the tip of her tongue, but she easily swallows it down, schooling her face into a scowl.

“If you mean take a frying pan to his face then yes,” she nods, and then winces again as a hair pin digs into her scalp.

“All done,” says the girl, before spritzing perfume on her. She almost chokes on a cherry blossom scented cloud, and when it passes, Raven is standing by the door, grinning like the cat that caught the canary. Clarke may or may not have deliberately stepped on her good foot.

“Come on Cinderella,” she says, linking her arm through hers once she stands up, “Let’s get you to the ball.”

“I hope a spider crawls in your mouth when you’re sleeping tonight.”

She does manage to school her face in a pretty neutral expression when they enter the living room, and it seems as though Bellamy was preparing himself beforehand, as he barely reacts to her appearance, only giving her a cursory look up and down. The only tell is the bob of his adam’s apple when he swallows, and Clarke bites the inside of her cheek to keep from looking too smug.

“Do I meet your standards?” she can’t help tease him, and his eyes snap up to hers, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“I guess you’ll do,” he sighs dramatically, and offers her his arm.

“Have her home no later than eleven, Blake!” Raven calls out as they’re walking out the door.

He flips her off behind his back. “Fuck off, Reyes,” he bites out, succinct.

Her laughter follows them all the way down the hallway and Clarke grumbles, “She’s a goddamn menace,” while hiking up her dress to walk down the stairs.

“That she is,” he nods before looking sidelong at her. “You look nice.”

Her cheeks flush on their own accord. “Thanks. So do you.”

“Thanks,” he says, and she can’t mistake the the humour in his voice. She elbows him in the rib and he laughs. “What? What did I say?”

“You’re a dick,” she huffs, still blushing, and that just makes him laugh louder.

“The car should be here in a moment,” he tells her as they come to a stop in the empty lobby. She just hums in response, glancing around aimlessly until he says, “Hey Clarke?”

Before she can turn to look at him, he’s cupping her jaw, pushing her up against the wall and kissing her sweetly. She makes a sound of surprise in the back of her throat, but then she’s kissing him back, just as slow, one hand tangling in the hair at the base of his neck, while the other fingers his tie, and he breathes a soft sigh of relief, pulling her flush against him.

When they pull apart, he rubs his nose against her cheek gently, mumbling, “You look _really_ nice,” and swipes a quick peck to her cheek before pulling away, slipping his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels.

She’s fairly certain her entire face is red at this point, but she still reaches out for his arm, looping hers through it as she says, “You look really nice too, Bellamy.”

The boyish grin he gives her makes her heart stutter in her chest, and then he glances at his phone. “Come on; car’s here.”

He helps her into the backseat before slipping in himself, and then lets his arm rest on her shoulders the entire drive there. She takes advantage of it, leaning into his warmth, and she feels him squeeze her shoulder in response.

“You have some lipstick,” she says, noticing the smudge of it on his mouth. He swipes at it with his hand, but misses the spot completely and Clarke reaches up, thumb rubbing the corner of his mouth. “I got it,” she mutters, getting it out completely, and and he presses a kiss to her forehead in turn.

“Thanks Princess,” he says, looking at her impossibly soft and she feels warm all over.

She doesn’t have time to dwell on it though, because soon enough they’re pulling up to the venue where the event is being hosted and their being blinded by the flash of cameras.

The whole walk down the red carpet is a blur in her mind, filled with cameras and questions and the warmth of his arm hooked around hers as he leads them through. They stop only once or twice for pictures, and Clarke pastes on a wide grin for those, posing next to him until his arm hooks through hers again, pulling her inside.

The awards themselves is boring, intended mostly for crew members, but Bellamy keeps her from nodding off with his hand on her thigh the entire time, tracing maddening patterns that she feels even through her layers of skirts.

“Stop that,” she hisses while Jaha continues to drone on onstage. She catches his wrist and he flips his hand over, linking their fingers together.

“If we sneak out no one is going to notice,” he mumbles under his breath, “This thing is boring at fuck, and I haven’t had you in over two weeks.”

Despite the flash of heat his words send through her, she says, “And who’s fault it that?”

“Hey, what am I supposed to do? Tell them not to shoot offset because then I wouldn’t get to fuck the Princess?”

“Don’t be crass.”

“It’s true,” he mutters, glaring up at the stage. “Jaha doesn’t know when to shut up. I could make it worth your while instead.”

“You know, Raven told me that you made these things fun and I needn’t bring a flask, but I’m starting to think that I should have smuggled it in anyway.”

Even in the dim light she can see the shine of his teeth as he grins. “Hey, I’m offering to make things fun and you’re turning me down.”

Clarke turns to run a critical eye over him and he stares back, unflinchingly, his irises more black than brown, and positively irradiating lust. “Hmm. Fine, maybe later. Now _behave_ ,” she hisses.

The grin just widens and he leans in close, letting her feel the warmth of his thigh as it presses against hers. “Oh Princess,” he sighs, untangling their hands, so that he can go back to teasing her. She manages to repress a shudder when his fingers press against the dip between her thighs through her dress. “You don’t want that.”

Miraculously, they manage to get through the entire programme without drawing too much attention to themselves, though they do go through quite a few glasses of champagne, especially when Clarke shows him that two can play at that game, palming him through his slacks in a way that almost made him choke the first time.

They get out of there as soon as it’s done, escaping fairly unnoticed through the throngs of people, and he goes down on her, quick and messy, in a cramped utility closet, far enough from the hall that she can be as loud as she wants. After she repays the favour, giving him a lazy handjob before switching to her mouth when she realises that they have nothing to clean up with.

Neither of them remember to stagger their entrances back into the hall, and slip in with their fingers still tangled together and a telltale flush blooming on the apples of their cheeks. To anyone paying attention, it would be clear as day what they were up to, but they’re lucky enough that they only garner one or two looks in passing. Bellamy stays glued to her side, hand heavy on her hip the rest of the night, and when it’s time to leave, he slings it around her waist, keeping her close.

They make out for a while, trading soft sloppy kisses in the back of the car all the way home. He tastes a little bit like champagne, all bubbly and sweet, and Clarke melts into him, carding her fingers through his unruly hair.

“Had fun?” he mumbles against her cheek, exhaling heavily when she bites his jaw. He gropes her in retaliation, and Clarke squeaks.

She pulls back far enough so he can see her truly outrageous smile. “I guess you made it worth my while after all,” she muses, and he chuckles, pulling her mouth back to his.

He walks her up, arm slung around her shoulders, holding her heels in the other, and she buries her nose in his bicep breathing him in. When they reach her door, Bellamy lets his arm fall, reluctantly, and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. It’s chaste and sweet, and stark difference from any other kisses that they’ve shared these past few months during their on and off hook ups, and even though she’s somewhat drunk, it still feels like a turning point.

“See you later, Princess,” he says, with a slight wave of his hand and by the time she gathers her bearings to tell him the same, he’s already clicking his door shut.

Raven is still up when she walks in, face illuminated by the blue light of her phone screen, and she grins like a shark that’s caught blood.

“Don’t,” Clarke says, slumping against the door. She tries to tamp down on the giddiness to avoid suspicion, but Bellamy left her feeling like she’s floating on air.

Her grin just widens and turns the phone towards her. “There is going to be so much fanfiction written about you two tonight,” she snickers, “You two have been trending on Twitter for almost an hour now,” and Clarke just flips her off, heading to her room.

She throws herself on the bed with a contented sigh, grinning into her pillow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _later_ _  
_ **_J U N E_ **

Despite being back in the spotlight for well over a year, Clarke still doesn’t do very well with interviews.

Most of those in the beginning were what she expected: what happened between her and her ex girlfriend, where did she go for six months, and is she sure she’s just not a straight girl experimenting?

Then Bellamy started getting incorporated into her interviews as well.

If she had a nickle for how many times she’s been asked if they were dating, she’d have enough money to buy a small island where she might be able to escape him once and for all. If she wanted to that is.

It took her a while, but eventually she managed to accept interviews, no longer panicking at the sight of one, but for some reason today she’s on edge, trying not to fidget as she sits on the lime green sofa opposite an annoyingly peppy interviewer.

When she deviates of script however, Clarke realises that she’s had good reason to have been tense all morning.

“So what’s happening with you and Bellamy Blake hmm? It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen any interactions between you two.”

It’s been four weeks and three days to be exact, the numbers jumping to the forefront of her mind almost immediately.

Next to her, Raven stiffens, all but baring her teeth at the interviewer in a snarl, vastly different from the times when she used to kill herself laughing.

She doesn’t know exactly what happened between them, but she figured out enough when Bellamy stopped coming around as much, and Clarke started making excuses to avoid seeing him.

Clarke takes a shaky breath and flashes the peppy woman a tight smile, the closest to a ‘fuck you’ she can give and says, “We’re just friends that’s all. And we’ve been busy these past few weeks. Not as busy as Raven though. She just did this amazing movie…”

Thankfully no one questions her completely unsubtle segue and Raven is more than happy to take the pressure off of her.

What’s happening between her and Bellamy Blake? Well, she still has his sweatshirt crumpled into a ball and hidden in her closet. They’ve exchanged maybe five words a piece at most, and he still has a draw filled with her things over at his place. They ran into each other on the last day of filming, their cars parked next to each other, and it reminds her of that first day when they almost had a yelling match right there in the parking lot. Instead, he just nods and gives her a wide enough berth so they wouldn’t even brush against each other as he gets in his car.

She _misses_ him, something which shocked her to the very care when she realised it a few weeks back, and Clarke’s never wanted to kick herself as much as she did then for throwing everything away.

What’s happening between her and Bellamy Blake?

Who knows; she fucked it up.

 

* * *

 

 _later_ _  
_ **_J U L Y_ **

This year, Comic Con is more eventful for two reasons.

The first being that Criminal Setup has an actual fandom now- a real, honest to god following, larger than she would have thought possible, who are so involved with the show that it’s both amazing and a tad bit scary. Not to mention those who want her character and Raven’s to get together.

(“We have shippers,” Raven informs her gleefully one night, and Clarke distinctly remembers groaning out loud before cursing to high heaven because she’s had enough shipper madness to last a lifetime. Possibly even two lifetimes.)

The second reason is a bit of a harder pill to swallow.

She got invited to the fan favourite panel on the last day.

And so did Bellamy.

Who the event supervisors thought would be nice to put next to her for an hour in front of a hundreds.

If she gets out of this weekend alive, she’s going to thank every god and deity she can think off.

Raven is understandable worried once they get the news, immediately coming up with a variety of ways to get out of it. “You could fake sick, or pretend to lose your voice,” she rattles off, “Or maybe you fell down in the shower the night before and broke your hip-”

“It’s fine,” she interjects, squaring her shoulders. She tries to smile at her but she’s pretty sure it falls flat. “What’s the worse that can happen?”

She doesn’t seem impressed by that answer for she replies, “You and Bellamy air your dirty laundry for the entire world to see.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she says resolutely.

“At this point I don’t put anything past you two,” she mutters, and Clarke nudges her with her toes.

The day of the actual panel, Clarke takes Anya’s advice and tries to meditate in the morning in hopes of calming herself. It helps a bit; she’s not quite as jumpy as she could be, but she’s still definitely on edge, clutching her purse like a lifeline as she navigates the halls on her own.

The waiting room is mostly empty, with just a few people here, but that’s not what she pays attention to, eyes immediately landing on Bellamy, hunched over his phone in the corner.

Her heart squeezes in her chest.

She really, really misses him, didn’t realise just how much of an impact his presence alone has on her.

Before she knows it, her feet are taking her to him, and she carefully sits next to him on the loveseat, wiping her palms on her skirt several times.

He doesn’t notice her until she clears her throat, to which he stiffens, very slowly looking up, eyes guarded.

“Hi,” she says, quiet, tucking an errant curl behind her ear.

“Clarke,” he nods, impassive as ever and she feels her throat clog up.

She worries her bottom lip for a moment and sees his hand twitch, as though he was about to pull it free. “I um- can we talk?”

Bellamy just stares at her for good minute or so, to the point where she’s struggling not to fidget. Finally he just scrubs a hand down his face and hisses, “Now you want to talk?”

“I-”

“It’s been an entire month, Clarke,” he says bitterly, shifting away from her, “What could you possibly have to say after an entire month.”

Her eyes burn and she stares at her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice catching on the end of it. She can feel him staring at the side of her head, and she presses on. “I’m sorry I was so- abrupt with everything, and I… I miss you, Bellamy.”

When she finally musters up the courage to look back at him, his eyes are squeezed shut, pained.

“Don’t,” he manages to croak out and she jerks back as though she’s been hit.

“Bell-”

“We’re gonna talk about this later,” he tells her after taking a deep breath, “You don’t get to do this right before we do a panel together.”

She nods meekly. “Okay.”

The next hour is the longest hour of her life. She slips on her public persona mask easily enough, smiling and laughing, and answering her questions as coyly as possible, but on the inside she’s a mess. A shaking, confused mess.

After the panel is over and all requisite photos have been taken, Bellamy grabs hold of her wrist and pulls her along behind him. She follows without a word, barely sparing a thought for the shutters she hears going off as they weave through the crowd. That’s a bridge she’ll cross when she gets there. Or she might just avoid it all together. What’s one more thing to the whole ‘bellarke’ story, right?

Only when they end up outside at the pick up area does she ask, “Where are we going?”

Bellamy doesn’t even glance over at her. “My hotel. It’s only five minutes away, and a lot more private than a spare room at a convention centre.”

She stares down at her feet,“Okay,” she says, and then follows him in the cab that pulls up.

The short ride to the hotel is tense, and she finds herself biting on the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking after firing off a quick text to Raven. Bellamy still doesn’t look her way, choosing to glare at the window instead, jaw clenched tight, even when they’re dropped off, he just jerks his head in the general direction with a gruff, “Follow me.”

Once the door to his room has clicked shut, he turns to look at her, face impassive and arms crossed. “You wanted to talk? Then talk.”

Clarke takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry about before,” she starts, “I- you’re one of my best friends here, Bellamy, one of my only friends here besides Raven, and I was so fucking scared when you- I don’t have the best track record when it comes to relationships, and you- you’re too important to me to lose, so I’m sorry, and it was my fault we got in this whole mess in the first place, and if you forgive me, can we still be friends at least? I miss you.”

She says all of it in one go, and by the time she’s through, she’s heaving. Still, when he opens his mouth to speak, she holds a palm up and continues, voice wavering, “I just- I really fucking miss you and I’m so, so sorry.”

The words just hang there for a moment while she leans against the wall, face flushed.

“You through?” he asks with a quirk of an eyebrow. When she nods, he says, “You’re a pain in the ass-”

“Charming.”

“- who’ll argue with me about every fucking thing under the sun no matter what-”

“Oh stop it, I’m swooning, Blake.”

“You gonna be a little shit the whole time, or can I say my piece?” he asks mildly, and she colours. When he’s certain she’s no longer going to interrupt, he throws himself back on the bed with a groan, throwing an arm over his face. After a few seconds of silence, he confesses, “Raven called me out in like two weeks,” voice slightly muffled by his bicep, “Apparently my crush on you was painfully obvious.”

_What?_

She must have said it outloud because then he’s craning his neck slightly to glance at her, and she just flushes even more, picking her jaw up off the ground. “But you,” she sputters, “You were such a dick!”

He’s groaning again, hiding his face, but if she looks closely she can see the tips of his ears tinged red. “I was into you. Am. And terribly so.”

“You never said anything.”

“I didn’t want to fuck it up. Which, I realise is what I might have done the moment we agreed to continue having sex with each other, but I was just… so eager to have you in any way I could, even if it meant pretending that I wasn’t pining away.”

“But… why?”

“Why?”

She bites her lip, scuffing the toe of her sandal against the carpet. “Why me?”

Bellamy just give her a little shrug, smiling helplessly. “Because you’re you,” he says, easy as nothing, and those three little words make all the air in her lungs leave with a whoosh, causing her to stumble back against the wall in order to stay upright. “You had me on my ass within seconds with your no bullshit type attitude and I just… You through me for a loop.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he says, messing with his hair. “You- God Clarke, didn’t you realise? You had me. Every single thing you did just bewitched me, I couldn’t look away, and then I started to get to know you, all of you; the bossy little Princess who likes to manhandle me and sleep until noon, and prefers chamomile tea to black, and I… I fell in love with you,” he breathes, tearing his eyes away from hers to stare up at the ceiling, “I don’t know how, or when, but I just- I’m in love with you.”

If his previous statement made the air leave her, then this one makes her feel lightheaded and faint hearted all at the same time. The word ‘love’ echoes throughout her head and she feels a bubble of happiness growing in her chest, and she slips down the wall a little as she tries to make sense of the rest of his words.

He chuckles nervously when a few moments pass and she hasn’t said anything as yet. “Please tell me if I just fucked up this whole new ‘friendship’ thing so I can take it back. Five second rule applies here, right?”

It startles a faint laugh out of her. “It’s been more than five seconds.”

“Five minute rule then?” And she laughs again, this time louder, and then she’s crossing the room to meet him, clumsily climbing on top of him and bracing her hands on his chest.

“You goddamn idiot,” she huffs as he grabs her hips, steadying her, “I’m in love with you too.”

The smile to unfurls across his face could crack it in two, absolutely blinding, and she shrieks when he sits up suddenly, one hand moving up to cup the back of her neck while the other pulls her into his chest, lips ghosting across hers.

Then he’s kissing her soundly, lips chapped and eager, and it’s messy, the two of them grinning far too widely to make anything work.

“Oh thank god,” he rasps into her skin, forehead pressed against hers, and then he’s kissing her again, slower this time, and deep, and she just hugs him tighter, licking the joy from his tongue, or maybe having hers intermingle with his because she’s just so fucking happy, she feels like she’s going to float away.

“Hey,” he mumbles against her lips, caressing her cheekbones when she makes move to get them horizontal, “Slow down. I’m not going anywhere.”

Clarke squeezes his forearm. “I know, I just,” she drops her head in the crook of his neck, and he pets her, letting his fingers tangle in hair. “I just missed you a lot, that’s all.”

His responding smile is achingly soft, and a little shy, and he slowly presses her into the bed, kissing her sweet once more.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs again, and her heart is bursting at the seams at this point.

“Good,” she sighs happily, trailing a hand down his back, feeling vertebrae and the movement of his muscles as they tense and flex beneath his shirt. She holds his face between two palms and looks him dead in the eye when she says, “I’m not going anywhere either.”

Bellamy grins, soft, and when he leans back down to kiss her, Clarke can feel the love bursting from every cell in her body, flooding her with warmth and sunshine from the inside out, making her toes curl.

She’s in love with him, and he her, and nothing on this earth could ever top that.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm always available for yelling on [tumblr](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com/)


End file.
